


The runner

by keyrousse



Series: Healing (Broadchurch) [1]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23446951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyrousse/pseuds/keyrousse
Summary: The town is healing. So is a certain DI.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Series: Healing (Broadchurch) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687639
Comments: 18
Kudos: 114





	The runner

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent introspection. I don't argue with my plot bunny when it decides to give me something, I'm just here to type it down.  
> No beta, English is not my native language, so sorry for all mistakes you will most certainly find here.

The day at the beach after Joe’s ‘banishment’ (Ellie prefers the term ‘send-off’) is both joyful and weird. Joyful because they are together, Ellie with her sons, Beth with her family. Weird because Beth does something that isn’t typical for her: she takes Ellie aside and apologises for how she treated Ellie after Joe’s arrest.

Beth admits she realised how painful the whole situation was for Ellie during the trial, and she wasn’t making it any better.

“I think I deserved it, in a way,” Ellie admits. “I should’ve known. And I had the nerve to ask the same thing Susan Wright. ‘How could she not know’. Just the way I didn’t, I guess.”

“Don’t make me change my mind,” Beth says with a smile. “And thank you for your help after my waters broke. I was a solid bitch.”

“You were, but I’ve known that before, so it’s nothing new,” Ellie quips, and they laugh, and they hug. Ellie knows their friendship will need some more mending, but it’s a good start.

“But I left you alone,” Beth adds when they’re seated back on the blankets on the beach.

“I had Hardy, in a way; we didn’t have an affair, but we’re friends. I was helping him solve the Sandbrook case, so it was a nice distraction.”

“Did you solve it?”

“Yesss,” Ellie admits with a wide smile. “I don’t think it’ll make him any less grumpy, but at least this one got closure.”

“Now that I think about it, Hardy deserved to be on Joe’s send-off,” Beth admits, looking out to the sea. “He took a lot of heat. I know you complained about him, but he was nothing but compassionate to us.”

“Yeah, he can do that. And I don’t think inviting him would be a good idea, considering how it looked like. And he probably wouldn't come. He left Broadchurch, nothing’s keeping him here anymore.”

“Oh,” Beth says and that’s it.

* * *

Almost three years later, Hardy returns with his daughter. He’s changed in some subtle ways: he’s still thin, but it looks more of a choice than the result of an illness; his hair is shorter, making him look younger. There’s a new bounce to his step, he has more energy. No weird faintings at the end of a long work day or a short chase after a suspect. He’s still his grumpy self, sometimes even grumpier than before, awkward around women he’d like to date, a terrible liar, deeply compassionate to the victims or the families of the victims, so at least that’s familiar.

The ‘ticker’ is working and Ellie is glad. She has him back, closer than before: she can argue with him and he'd argue back; she can steal his toast, spend long hours going through evidence, drink his terrible tea, watch him get angry at suspects and supportive towards his daughter, and she maybe loves him for all he is, even though she wants to kill him at least three times a day.

* * *

Soon after the end of the Winterman case, Beth has a small discovery to announce.

“There’s a new runner,” Beth says as she sets a cup of coffee in front of Ellie and sits down on her couch with her own. “Avoiding main routes, using mostly hillside paths.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Ellie asks.

“A tall man, skinny legs, grey workout clothes, always wearing some kind of a cap so I can’t see his hair, always stays away from other people and disappears once I start to follow him,” Beth continues as if she didn’t hear Ellie’s question.

“Why are you following him?”

Beth glances at Ellie.

“Because he looks like Hardy, but since I can’t see him from close-by, I’m not sure.”

Ellie hums and takes a sip of her coffee.

“Doesn’t he have some health issues? Heart problems?” Beth probes. Hardy’s condition was never a truly public knowledge, but rumours spread fast in the town. They knew he ended up in a hospital twice during Danny’s case, was medicalled out of work afterwards, then he disappeared for days during Joe’s trial.

“Those were fixed,” Ellie replies absently. “He’s got a pacemaker during Joe's trial, no issues since then, as far as I know.”

“You think it can be him? Can you jog with a pacemaker?”

“I don’t know! He never said anything. I wouldn’t put it past him, though.”

“I didn’t think he worked out,” Beth admits.

“He makes sure he’s not considered human,” Ellie says. Beth snorts. “I don’t know, Beth. The one time I saw him running, he collapsed and ended up in a hospital. Then his condition got worse, then he had the operation, then he didn’t have to chase anyone.”

“Hardy’s got long legs and that man, whoever he is, is easily outrunning me.” Beth shakes her head while she’s stirring her coffee.

“While making sure he’s not recognised. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it can be Hardy.”

“If he works out, jogging is the only thing that makes sense with him.”

They laugh, imagining Hardy lifting weights.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Beth reports to Ellie the runner’s whereabouts. Not that Ellie asked for it, but she notices that the man’s routes become longer and more difficult, more tiring, but the process is very gradual. The man always runs early in the morning. Ellie takes time to observe Alec’s behaviour at work during those weeks; he’s still the same, though, still pale, still thin, avoiding coffee and barely eating anything. He’s always awake and fresh at work. Ellie tries to estimate the hour he would have to finish his morning run to have time to take the shower, eat breakfast and show up at work without the signs of the workout he allegedly did beforehand.

Ellie also notices he never spends the night at the station, although she writes it down on the fact that Winterman case was the last really serious one: they mostly deal with theft, not important enough to miss a good night’s sleep. And he has reasons to return home, now. Ellie thinks his efforts to be a good dad for Daisy are admirable.

He’s also slightly less grumpy in the mornings than he was during Danny’s case. She’s sure she’s the only person at the station to notice that.

One day, when she can’t sleep, she shows up at his house at six in the morning, and watches his tall and slim figure run up the hill at leisurely pace. He’s quite graceful like this, she notices, despite the loose clothes and the baseball cap on his head. He controls his body perfectly, he doesn’t trip. He’s focused on his path, taking big steps, his long legs carrying him effortlessly.

It’s nice seeing him like this, outside of work, focused on something pleasant, being… healthy.

He’s sweaty and panting, but she doesn’t see the lines of pain on his face, he doesn’t rub his chest. He’s spent after his exercise, but that’s all.

He barely reacts to her being here.

“Beth wonders who’s the mysterious new jogger,” Ellie starts and enters his house after him. “She’s tried to outrun him.”

“I know,” Alec says and pushes his trainers off his feet and leaves them by the door. “I don’t understand what’s the big deal.” He throws his cap on the couch on his way to the bathroom, dark hair sweaty and plastered to his head.

“I think it may be fascinating, you engaging in a human exercise,” Ellie says and follows him deeper into the house. He removes his hoodie, giving her a glimpse of his bare back, as his t-shirt is pushed up with the motion.

He stops and looks at her, a frown on his face.

“You think I consider myself above all of you?” he asks, his accent thick. “That I don’t want anyone following me on my runs, because then you’ll know I’m lowering myself to your level?”

She’s startled by his indignant tone: he’s genuinely offended.

“No, I…” she starts. Alec rolls his eyes and walks into the bathroom, closing the door behind him with more force than necessary. Ellie lets the air out of her lungs. Soon, the shower starts. Ellie looks around the living room. She remembers Daisy is away on a school trip, so it’s mostly his mess on the table.

The shower doesn’t last long. Soon Alec leaves the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, wearing his suit trousers and a white undershirt. Ellie gets a glimpse of his pacemaker surgery scar. Alec notices she’s looking.

“My cardiologist gave me an all-clear for jogging a few weeks ago, finally,” he says softly, much less irritated than she expects under the circumstances. She’s offended him after all, now she’s invading his privacy, standing in the middle of his living room, uninvited.

“You liked it? Before, you know…” she asks, making a circle above her left shoulder with one finger, indicating the pacemaker and his heart problems.

“Yeah. Feels good to be able to do it again,” he admits and she’s shocked. He’s so soft now, hair in total disarray, the towel hanging on his shoulders, him only partially dressed, openly admitting something that feels so private, considering it’s him: everything outside of work is very private and almost off limits.

But then, she’s seen him being soft, hasn’t she? He’s soft when it matters, when he’s around the people he cares about. He’s offered his softness to her before, his comfort, a hand on her shoulder, a suggestion of a hug, eyes warm, a quiet voice and simple, honest ‘you okay?’ when she needed it the most.

She realises now she rarely accepted it. She mostly pushed him away, because she was too wallowed in her own feelings to notice his. Why the hell he’s still trying to reach out to her, to allow her into his space, she has no idea. Because that’s what he’s doing right now, he’s inviting her in without saying it.

She looks up, into his warm eyes, and smiles at him.

“That’s good,” she says with a soft smile. “I’m glad you’re recovering,” she adds because she needs to. She knew he was getting better after the operation, but him being able to run is just another proof that his life is getting back on the ‘normal’ track, that she won’t have to worry about that anymore. She did, sometimes, when he was gone and even after he returned.

He nods and looks down.

“See you at work,” she says and leaves hastily, not daring to keep looking at his face with the permanent stubble and freckles over his cheeks, more prominent now as he’s catching more sun every morning, engaging in his favourite workout routine.

* * *

Ellie doesn’t tell Beth that the runner is indeed Hardy, but the woman draws her own conclusions by then, and when she manages to get within an earshot of the man the next morning, she calls out to him:

“Morning, DI Hardy!”

Even from the distance she can see him rolling his eyes. She doesn’t follow him, he doesn’t reply, he just runs on.

One thing changes, though. He no longer wears a cap on his runs, no longer hides. He has five routes now, all similarly difficult and long, two of them are through the town. He chooses a different one every day, changes the directions, there’s no pattern in the system. Beth figures he’s careful: he’s a police officer and even though he doesn’t have enemies in the town, everyone appreciating his devotion to Danny’s and Trish's cases, he makes it difficult to be caught in the open.

The observation is educational: she does the same, just for the thrill of it.

The town talks about DI Hardy engaging in exercise, but it doesn’t last long. The people know he’s a decent human being, respected despite being unapproachable, unlikable and very private. The town’s early birds quickly get used to the sight of the brown-haired Scottish grump in grey sweats and dark blue trainers, running and not caring about anything.

Ellie’s not worried about him, about his pacemaker or his heart giving out. For some reason, she believes he’s sensible about this; also, she’s seen him run, his pace: it’s nothing too strenuous for a person who’s used to this kind of activity.

It’s beautiful, in a way.

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, this is a part of a larger work, but from chap2 onwards it's a pretty heavy hurt/comfort (look at my bookmarks. I love hurt/comfort), so I haven't decided whether to post the rest (it's not even fully written yet). Maybe I will, when I get over my guilt over having some mildly sadistic tendencies ;) (no major character death from me!)


End file.
